Best friends, babies thriving after unorthodox adoption

When Payton Noelle and Phoenix Isryelle were born last spring, their biological mother handed the newborns over to her infertile best friend to raise, inspiring both admiration and concern.

"Check back in six months and let's see if these women are still talking," one reader admonished after the Tribune chronicled the Mother's Day tale.

We did, and they are.

If anything, the unorthodox arrangement has provided more glue for the decades-old friendship of Anese Adams, 37, and Cynthia Rice, 38, as each expressed appreciation for the other.

"I have no misgivings at all," said Adams, who gave birth to the girls. "Cynthia is an unbelievably awesome mom, just as I knew she would be."

After Adams delivered the twins by emergency Caesarean section May 4 at Rush University Medical Center, they were passed to their adoptive mother's loving embrace.

Adams took on the role of godmother, just as Rice is to Adams' two children, Wellington and Jerusalem.

"I get to spoil them--and then I get to drop them off," Adams said of the babies.

Rice, for her part, said Adams has not been intrusive. She's grateful for any help she can get as she juggles the endless demands of work and two children who have yet to get their nocturnal schedules in sync.

"Who knew that sleep was such a precious commodity?" she said incredulously.

The tag-team approach proved valuable after Rice had emergency bowel surgery when the twins were barely a month old.

This month, Phoenix had open-heart surgery but made it home just in time for Christmas. (Her valve problem, along with Down syndrome, was detected during Adams' pregnancy.)

Rice gives both girls a robust health report. "They are fat and fluffy," she said.

Adams, too, has found herself tested in untold ways since the birth. In early July, her mother died of congestive heart failure. Three weeks later, her brother died of a heart attack.

"From the births to the deaths," she said, "it has been quite a year of experiences--and growth."